Welcome everyone and thank you for coming to this government operations and fiscal policy committee meeting. Today we are to be by a colleague council member welcome thank you for joining us today. We are talking to our office of grants management. This is a follow up to our meeting we had on November 12th of 2024. After our meeting on November 12th we did send a letter over to the Office of Grant Management and the Executive Branch on December 3rd, outlining a number of questions and follow-ups from that November meeting. I'll turn over to Ms. Clemens Johnson to walk through the packet and then turn over to Director Murphy. Thank you. Good morning, Stewart. For the packet, we just provided just a big background of what was discussed at our November 12th meeting and also highlighted the memo that the Geo Committee sent and also the response received from the Chief Administrative Officer. I did provide a few great updates, updates regarding the office and the work that they have been doing that efforts to really improve communication by hosting monthly forms, putting in place a weekly newsletter and their transition to a new grant platform. So the office has been very busy and trying to be responded to our organizations. So I do not have any further updates, but if there are any questions, please let me know and I can address them. Thank to have a meeting with the community. We're going to be able to have a meeting with the community. We're going to be able to have a meeting with the community. We're going to be able to have a meeting with the community. We're going to be able to have a meeting with the community. We're going to be able to have a meeting with the community. We're going to be able to have with us this morning. Of course, for record, Rafael Pumelio from Murphy, direct your office of grants management. So we'll have a response. with us this morning? Of course, for record, Rafael Pumelio from Murphy, Director Officer Grants Management. So when that responds, it starts out by giving a background of the Community Grants competition, and that's been presented in previous hearings. But I think it's worth noting just how enormous the number of applications were, how difficult the review process was due to the number of applications, how difficult it was to match reviewers, subject matter expert reviewers from county government to programs that were outside of their scope. And the difficulty that we had in the entire ten month long process from when we opened up for competitions, when we finally got the notification letters out. And then, through ending competitiveness, 98.18 out of 100 score was the average winning score. when we finally got the notification letters out. And then the ending competitiveness, 98.18 out of 100 score was the average winning score, which I've never seen that in my 20 year career of grants of just how competitive that was because of the volume, the range, and the quality of the projects that we had. And $5.3 million sounds like a lot of money, but that went really quickly with what we had in the quality of proposals. So that left a lot of traditional partners out of the mix, and that left a lot of new potential partners out of the mix as well. But that's how statistically, and there's purely a data driven approach in terms of how we came to awards. It worked. And so that leads into how we wanted to approach that, with the executive did after seeing that a lot of the traditional partners were going to be left off. We found left over money in FY 24 and a little bit FY 25 money to continue for another year awards for these legacy recipients 102 organizations, about $4.7 million total to give them continuing funding. So they weren't cut off in like two months before the fiscal year ended. So that money is ongoing. Those programs are continuing to be implemented going through. Now in terms of what the CAO puts in there in terms of going forward, he intends to or this kind of of executive intents to continue the three year multi-year grants for the community grants recipients, pending council appropriations, of course, and pending performance. So if we find that new, these partners should not perform well, that the program should not doing what they said they were going to do or having other challenges, then we will cut off funding for them and that money will be recycled back into the general fund. But beyond that, the recompeting community grants, unless there's additional funds appropriated, those awards that Poddumani's can be locked in for these multi-year awards until it's until those expire in FY27. That'll be the last year that the multi-year will be within that year where we compete those for FY28 where it's going forward. What the letter outlines is the intent to put more concrete targets goes of what this part of money, like dice up the money basically into pots, focus on specific areas, not to have what we did in FY24, where it was just a wide open competition for any type of service in any type of sector. And so that will give us some more targeted approach and build on what we've seen as successes, where we are able to fly through grants competitions in two to three months, get the roads out the door quickly and get partners using the funds and having impact on our communities when you have a targeted. And then we also have a much much much better match of subject matter experts who are actually reviewing these applications rather than kind of you get what you get when you when you review or when you review or are an applicant which isn't the best way to go through these. The the letter then goes into the latest asks about what we could do to improve the process. And I feel like I'm really consistent about we really need to set specific targets for a possible money. If we want to do mental health, let's do mental health and set a plan just around that to do it. If we want to target real nonprofits or small nonprofits, let's set the plan just around that to make sure the money goes to those organizations or reaches those organizations. We need if we move a wide open. Again, I think a lot of the data that we've collected is part of the review process and doing some routine 80 90 hours of feedback sessions with our applicants going through the reviews line by line, comment by comments board by score shows that there's just fundamental imbalances when you do these wide open competitions and smaller nonprofits are left out, certain sectors are left out, certain types of needs are left out just kind of systemically. I think that was one of the sides I presented in the last hearing. So again, just be more targeted with how we approach it, clear boundaries around the pots of money that we put out there is just going to lead to better processes and throughout this past year with appropriations or other department like grant programs, we've been successful in continuing to do that. So that's pretty much again, I just want to reinforce what I feel I've been saying for a while. And again, the week provided with some of the different, you know, really unique types of grant programs that we've helped departments put money out as a grant agreement as opposed to procurement contract. And that often gets kind of lost in the mix of the fundamental differences between the grant agreement and procurement contract where procurement contracts are reimbursable, which is a huge burden on nonprofit partners. But a lot of our grant programs who were given people all the money at fund cash, so they're spending cash as opposed to waiting to get reimbursement and we still have accountability mechanisms We still have the ability to audit at will to make sure that funds are being used appropriately It's still have the legal ability to claw back funds if we need to But it's just a fundamentally different model of how we approach How that contractual agreement between the county and the nonprofit is and it's a fundamentally better one It's also easier to include indirect costs. So all of our grants have allowed to 15% of indirect costs if actually as a floor, as a floor of 15% of indirect cost. So if they're able to demonstrate the havoc, a higher indirect cost that's been approved by the federal government will give them that. But that's a key lifeline for nonprofits to get that unrestricted funds that they use for the cooperation. So we've been doing that for two months. That's harder to even become a contract. So there's just a number of benefits of having a grant. There's a procurement contract that really helps our partners. In terms of the legacy of rewards, with the CES intent going forward, Again, it felt that a lot of these projects scored very high. It was very disappointing. You have a feedback session. It was someone who scored in 97.5 average score. Who's the traditional partner seems to have been doing great work for the community. But average running scores in 98.1, they lost out. There were a lot of partners who did score high and just were left out through the highly competitive nature of the competition. So the CES intent that he has not released as FY26 budget yet is to include funding for to give out of these regulatory renewals another year funding through FY26. That is going to be subject to performance. So if we find any of these folks have not been doing what they're supposed to have really good steward of resources or not having the impact that they said they would. Then that the funding will be cut off. But that is the intent going forward for legacy renewals into FY26 past FY26 the letter outlines how we. Again, this during the targeting resources, seven parameters, and some examples are given such as these services, again, this during the targeting resources, seven parameters, and some examples are given such as use services, aging disability, natural resources, different types of topics that we could align the grant program around to collect applications that really focus on those key areas. And what the key areas are going to be a year from now, I talked to say, especially about the uncertainty at the federal level, we could see holes in our needs and our community opened up that we're not used to. And so having that kind of flexible parole to kind of target at these key needs at that time, you know, it's better to set those needs when we have, when we know what they are. So essentially there would be a two track approach for effort that can be grants, the folks won the competition. They would continue on with a multi-year growth subject to appropriation and subject to good performance. And then the legacy renewals will get one year funding more subject to performance and appropriation. And then for the cost sharing capital grants, those of all been resolved. Or roads that are involved in sent out. I think there's a handful of partners that we've done at Grand Grim and SRED, but those have all been resolved. And so we've actually opened up the FY25 competition now. I did the information session for nonprofit applicants yesterday. It's online, it's recorded for their accessibility, going questions for potential applicants. We've reached out to people who are unsuccessful last time around, didn't encourage them to reapply. And so that's ongoing. For FY26, what I anticipate doing is as soon as the legislative session ends is to post what we've been doing is a monthly stage applications for a lot of our programs. It's just simply posting an FY26 module on a platform for blockchain, capital grants. And because what we always know is we know Rubik's money from the state, but we don't know how much they want from us. And so that module will be very simple, just to contact information, prove that they want a state of reward and the base amount of what they're going to want from us. And so that will be, you know, Apple, CE releases this budget, but before you throw down the final budget. So you'll have some clear data of there. And then based on that, once it could eligibility, we can have a second stage where then we ask for more detailed documents and backup and plans and demonstration that they're going to use the funds well. And then if council decides that as part of your voting that you want to put more parameters your focus on these on these state matched funds for cost-sharing capital grants, then you know that'll be a progative and I will integrate that into the competition. So stage one would just be seeing what is the body of needle pass out there and stage two will be okay how do we meet your priorities as you sent them in the budget. So we did receive a letter that you sent about prioritizing cost sharing capital grants and that there should be for state matched and that's going forward. That's what we see just based on the data that we have and the volume of applications we get and the need that we see. You know, there's that really should be prioritized. If the state does work for us, we should help them with these projects. And I think that's very much Mr. Murphy. And I was informed there must have been a miscommunication effort that I believe I thought Mr. Madeline had been invited, but it seems like there was miscommunication and he had not received the invitation to be here today. So he did not know me. wait, requested him. So we'll follow up on how that miscommunication happened. I will say the letter did come from the CAO's office. And I appreciate all your efforts, direct and Murphy. You have, as you said in your comments, you have been saying these things for a while to this committee. I think one of the frustrations we have is that we have identified the places where we need to make improvements and changes in our letter of December 3rd to you and the executive's office we asked for a strategic plan for the next community awards process because of the timing of when that will be put in place. And again, the response that we're receiving is we're going to get to that. The same thing with the legacy grants. We're going to get to that. I think the concern that I'm expressing as chair of this committee as well as channeling the concern I'm hearing at every single community meeting I go to. I was just on a meeting this morning with a commission on aging. And they mentioned this. I cannot go to a community meeting without some nonprofit or group in our community asking us what are we doing with our community grants? I don't understand. There's a lot of instability right now in the county because of what's happening in the White House, but that is compounded by the fact that we still don't have clarity on how we're gonna move forward with our community grants for our enrollment benefits and members of our community and the process for the legacy grants just doesn't not seem clear to people whatsoever. So we have requested and have not received a strategic plan and it just seems to me that this administration has world plans of actually addressing this problem. This administration has less than two years in place and given the timing of community grants and other things, we'll plan yesterday for these things. And I know we've been saying to you two us this is how you see forward. And I guess, and maybe I'm putting you in an unfair position here, but I'm trying to figure out how do we move forward? It to address the situation. It is clear from your expertise and what you've seen, from the expertise of our nonprofit partners in the community that there are ideas on how we can move this forward. And I guess my question is how what do we do? Because we're not getting that strategic plan, we're not getting that direction right now. And what our nonprofits and our community members need right now is answers and stability and understanding of in this great time of uncertainty how we can plan for the future. So I don't know if you have anything else to add to that and I understand all of the hard work that you've been doing. Oh, how a bit of my colleagues dancing on the cats. Thank you very much. How about you, Alex? I can't make a certain amount of my life, but for me, I just have to take those off. I'll still file a few, but I'll go and do. Even I will sever that time. Somebody who can get a 99% percent from stolen at get a legacy, create. Morning. seven, seven percent. Still not yet. Legacy. Grant. First of all, that's unbelievable. I said there are no rules to the people that are in the society. Seven percent is an A. So now, several people, as we speak, we're saying, it's just like good enough. You need another one, whatever it is. What are the most of the people serving? Well, for that, the organization I mentioned, they received a legacy grant. So they didn't receive a few grants that they received a legacy. So because they did score very high, and that's where the CE did, put in 24 resources and that's where anticipates putting in FY 26 resources to keep that program going because they had been certain community well. They did get a high score. It wasn't high enough to win a community grant, but they got the legacy award. So there was a safety or is there an action that that it's going to say, is there a safety map that groups have actually going out? So there is a safety or is there an action that's going to say is there a safety mount that the groups have actually really outworked and the brain processes because we're talking about it not working in the modern world in some cases. It is not a safety mount when that, but you see in the first verse, the safety of. Okay. And when you tell someone, and you talk about it in the discussion, that things are not necessarily going down to trivial, kind of funding, and you tell them, now they can correct that, the moment you're much more worried them, we've probably not found where you start at all. I mean, that was last year, that was the conversation throughout the last fiscal year. We anticipated or I anticipated that we could move through the process much quicker than we could. And we had the bridge funding, we thought, oh no, we need more time, we need more time more time so we kept on doing it so that was a lot of stress in our nonprofit partners with that instability and I fully acknowledge that and that is also contributed very much contributed to the CE giving for a year funding for these organizations. So with the notification that these organizations are the CE intends to subject to progressions. It extends another year, they'll give them a lot of stability. But for other grant programs, you know, when funding runs out or if we lose in the world, you know, we really do need to lower partners now as soon as we are certain that the funding is going to be cut off. You know, in the world, it's to those organizations, so if we have the funding off, to release that money, what it happens to those organizations, we're sorry about the residents of Montgomery County, do we know how they can stay in business? How they're able to function? I think it was organization organization, a larger organizations, but probably just cut off that component, that program, that service, and just go on with other funded components that they have with the organization, but some smaller organization. If they lose that funding from us, then that's very, very legitimate. That's right. There's a lot of concerns, but one of my greatest concerns is that we're very, very greatest concerns. That we, um, we're going to be able to buy, uh, by some of the young seven percent or whatever the, whatever that number is an extremely high number, you know, I'm stressing right here, but that's just not good enough. That concerns me what happens to those organizations because we are their lifeblood. And I think we want to make certain kind of presence and shows up. I think we have a lot of work going on in the yesterday to figure out what we're going to do and how we're keeping people in business. And it's not a reality, but it's not a reality. The only thing is in in it, it's a reality, a reality that we're able to keep them functioning. Because this is a real concern. And with that, I'll turn it back to you, Ben. Thank you. Council Member Peterson. Thank you, dear colleagues. Thanks. First of all, I want to just echo the comments that were made particularly by the Chair and President. There's a lot of frustration and understandably so. I mean, we're basically six years into this. I mean, there was a homeless Chair who was here with Councilmember Katz and me for these initial conversations. And frankly, it promotes your role in this. And by all accounts, the two universal truths of this whole process is one ongoing frustration and anxiety among our nonprofit partners. And two, the people will do a pushy that you're trying your best and that you're working really hard and within the confines of the world in which you have been given which is to execute what has been asked of you, you are doing what you can. And so the frustration that you're hearing from colleagues here, the frustration that you'll hear from me is not directed at you and your ability to do the job that you've been asked to do. And frankly, all the work that you have done up to this point, it's the fact that, you know, I think the quote that I've got down is this administration has no plan. And it's really not up to you to make the policy decisions on what that plan would entail. But we are six years into this, and it's just an on-finding dynamic of a black hurdle for a nonprofit partners who have no idea how decisions are going to be made, when decisions are going to be made, how they should plan accordingly. And the legacy gradients is a good example of this. Last year there were unrealistic expectations set. We wanted to relitigate those. I was very upfront about my concern and my skepticism of whether or not the ambitious goals could come anywhere close to reality. That's what we gave extra runway. That extra runway, which there was resistance to even giving that extra runway, most We're excited to be alive. That we have. We're excited to be able to do this result of a legacy finance. Now. We're excited to go on. This results in a legacy grants. Now we're doing legacy grants again, and my concern is, we'll be exactly back for next year. And all we've done in all the sales number we suggest is that we've kicked the can down the room for what would be the seventh consecutive year for a process that has not been challenged. And I want to put your suppose to play on the one again in classroom response discussing concerns about the services that are being provided and what happens to those services that are being provided at a time when these services will never. That is a local question and a local concern. Beyond that though, how on profits supposed to plan if they have a monthly pay for one, if they don't know when the funding is going to come, we've had a F-like 24 money that doesn't get allocated until two years later. I mean, it's closeness. And it's just completely unacceptable for us to take six meters or seven meters to come up with a plan for how we've not pushed this at a certain point. We've we got inside either we're moving in a certain direction or we're not. Either we're going to make it tough choice or we're not. Either we're going to see if something works or we won't. Because that's just a picture of dynamic of taking a can down the road, you know, trying to pump things if we don't like the outcome. And what it feels like is that we had an interaction either we can't execute what we say we're gonna execute. Who won? What people can do, that could bring people like the outcome. It's a big thing to put down the road because they're not in the way of happening. That's not acceptable, that's not fair. That's not reasonable. It's not a common part of this. It's not fair even for the legacy partners. You don't really know what this legacy is going to mean. It's a real not fair. Those couldn't get in the check. Because if this was a process that was supposed to be more metrics focused and more equitable and more reasonable and fair and more transparent, it's not a sin of that. It's worse, not better, in that sense. Because Arbitral, at some point in time, is missed, something that's second flavor, the counties that appeal to chief administrative officer, not really you're not you know essentially making these ultimate calls which I understand and I appreciate somebody's making a decision I'm going to go forward. I'm going to go right to the beginning of the week. I'm going to go forward. I'm going to go right to the beginning of the week. I'm going to go forward. I'm going to go forward. I'm going to go forward. I'm going to go forward. I'm going to go forward. I'm going to go forward. I'm going to go forward. I'm going to go forward. decision ultimately will and what that decision is based on and that is just completely unacceptable. We have to decide. We have to have a plan. Executive needs to send the service plan. The council needs to review that plan and then we all transparently need to communicate what what that plane is with the stakeholders who are impacted here. We will be Sun here and shouting from the mountaintops about all of our frustration of how the federal government is treating nonprofit service providers and other service providers. And we're not doing our part to help in a timing there is so much uncertainty, so much chaos, so much challenge. We have to control the part of this that we actually can control, which is how we do our partnerships, how we can re-incate our processes. We are found mostly short. Again, it is not your fault. You are only able to communicate the information that you have. You're only able to execute the plan and the policy decisions that you've been given. But we'll have to be so much better than this, and it is not anywhere near the level that it should be. We're not communicating. Attiquate where we're most. And we haven't planned properly enough. and that is just not acceptable. In the last piece I will note on the cautionary questions I do agree that we are going to have significant months and we send a separate letter on that as well to step up to the play in the way that you had described which I I appreciate the way you described this, that our state delegation is stepping up in significant ways to support our partners in the community to provide significant needs and address significant needs in our community. And I do think that we need to be prepared to meet that and to step up and partner with them. We're not going to solve the challenges in our community particularly in this incredibly chaotic moment unless we lean into partnership that means leaning to our state partnerships, their state delegation that means really leaning in even more than always have joined nonprofit partnerships. I talk a lot about how our secret sauce in Montgomery County is the partnerships the county government has with our nonprofit partners. The layers of mesh that we cannot address and serve the most vulnerable in our community with county government alone. And that is going to be more true now than ever before. And we going to have to really batten down the hatches. We're not to really double and triple down on those partnerships that we needed during the pandemic. We're going to need them just as much if not more moving forward because the challenges that we had during the pandemic aren't going away for other more populations and for the challenges facing online profit service providers, and we have new challenges, significant new challenges that are coming on board. So, really, it's a community that will move a much better plane and we need to get out of this perpetual cycle where it feels like, groundhog day, it really does feel like there's other of Portland. I feel like the only thing that has changed that we're now on this, David's in here, I'm sitting for, I'm sitting for the seventh floor, where we've had multiple conversations. Or the third floor, where we've had multiple conversations, but it feels like everywhere this community has the exact same conversation with the exact same responses without a clear plan for moving forward and it has got to get better because our nonprofit partners deserve way more than what we're providing right now and a lot better communication than what they've gotten up to this point. Thank you. Thank you. Thanks for allowing me to just sit in. So I have, I share the same concerns and I'll just focus just a few things. I just want to confirm. So the legacy grants for 2026 are currently in. We will see those in proposed CE budget when we get it in a couple weeks. That is my understanding. I haven't seen the final book yet but yeah that is my understanding. Okay and is your intention then to get that money out so can our legacy receivers, grantees, expect that money right away in FY26? Sure. So what we'll do and we'll be doing this for a lot of those little money, multi-year grant, or it's based on all the different grant programs we've run. So we'll open up like a special module within our grant platform. We'll essentially submit to us updated information for this going into FY26. Um, update contact information. The grant agreements have a number of attachments to it that outlined their proposal, which is generally not competing for it, but they start to get this proposal, because their proposal becomes a scope of work. So we'll give them the opportunity to upload their scope of work, their timeline, their budget, to meet the level that they've been given. We integrate, we review those, the department grant monitors will review those. If they're okay, then we integrate all that into a grant agreement, and then we run it through the grant agreement approval process at AP2-4. And so that once that's fully signed and executed, we issued a DPO direct purchase order, but we should do that all before our fiscal year 26 starts. So in fiscal year 26 starts in June 1, 2025, background agreement that DPO is in place and they'll have the money. Depending on the size of the green, they'll either get all, if it's a small grant, or kind of threshold is 25,000, 25,000 below, they just get all the money up front. If it's a larger grant, we'll give them maybe 30%, 40% up front, they spend again our cash, they submit a report showing that they've been doing good work, then it releases another charge of funding. usually at 90% of their funding before then. So yeah, that for those, yeah, so that's the question. And then the second year, I guess the second year for all the awardees, same process. So they'll get their money July, 2026. Anyone that has a community grant, a legacy grant, should be able to access, start the process to get their funding. Correct. Okay. And then the process of actually getting the check should be relatively quick. Sure. Once the fiscal, I have to look at the specifics of the apologies. I have to look at the specifics of the grant agreement, but once we get out the, when, if we have to wait till the fiscal year starts, actually cut them a check, preferably in the CH budget transfer, but almost as soon as the grant term starts, they should be able to get, if not that up from a month to 100 percent, or the first chunk of funding. thanks, thanks. I share the same concern about, okay, what happens in FY27, right? And without having, in time, as everybody knows, goes by very quickly when you're trying to set up a program, and it's to end up a program. So, the issue of, at what point point does the duties legacy grants move from you office grants management to the various departments that have to assess whether the county is going to continue funding services. And so we need to have a full understanding of what kind of review process, Office of Grants Management undertakes, because as Council Member Kat said, we have 102 nonprofits out there doing the work of the government with our residents that will no longer be able to do that work. We need to have a full assessment of how critical each of that, each of that those services are, because if the money goes away and the organization goes away, then what is the gap of service? And so we need to be working on that now. The reason I'm here today is I hear it from my constituents out in the community as to what's going to happen to these services. The other reason I'm here is this is a major process issue, and I just simply can't understand why we can't get it right. And I echo my colleagues, I appreciate the work that you're doing and in particular the communication that you provide, you've been very present whenever we have a question. So I really appreciate that. So I think that question that has to be answered by the executive branch is how are they going to absorb the cost of services that aren't being funded through the grant process? So do we need to move into all the various HHS to say, okay, senior services, youth services, all of these grants are going to have to be either absorbed or we need to all accept that this service is no longer taking place in our community. So we need to, we need an answer to how that process is going to happen. because with a lack of process, you're going to have 120, 102 nonprofits knocking on everyone's door and 11 also members screaming about these services. So that has to happen. And I know that we're talking about 2026 right now, but 2027 planning, we need to be looking at that now. So that's it for the legacy grants. I do also want to say that from the overall opinion perspective, there are a lot of questions that I have that can't be answered today, but should be answered in the process of developing overall strategy, long-term strategy for how we manage grants. One is the timeframe is three years too long. We're in such uncertain time right now, and I hope that we'll level off from the crisis that we're in right now. But I'm not here to make us even a suggestion about, was three years too long. We don't have to, we have to strategically look at it. That might be two years. Maybe we should be two years. I can't answer that today because we don't have a process for answering that question. The other is subject matter expert reviews. Major problem with having those reviews, those individuals in place, is that the right strategy? We don't really answer to that. What is the strategy if it is a three year grant? How are we going to ensure that those people are in place? That is a strategic question. It's a logistical question and I think we cannot wait until we're ready to sit those panels. And then the other, I agree with the concept of having issued worst grants as opposed to come one come all but which issues which but which which buckets and how much money is going to go to each of those buckets if we've got $5.3 million how's that money spread out we cannot wait to start having those discussions. And so I just want to really echo that we need to plan on in place. So this never happens again, and I know that you appreciate that and understand that. I just want to take one last minute about the state, the CIP matching grants, and I understand that disconnect between the state budget and the county budget. And we, so there's like, there is a lag in regards to that budget. But can you just walk me briefly through the process? The state makes it to, we just this, this Monday are already hearing about the 2026 grants. Ten just briefly the process, we get confirmation from the state knitting from as to what they're, what they're going to fund. What's the process then? So about 24 and 48 hours after the state and extra final decision, the director Wenger often off-sync to multiple relations, she passes me a spreadsheet showing all of the capital awards that were given in the state budget. And so that we go through that to see who might be asking us for money. But what did they say in their brown sheets, which is the application they submit in the fall, which may or may not be accurate. And so it's been kind of a guessing game there. That's so when we get that confirmation, we get that spreadsheet. We'll go through that, but I'll also open up a module and our grants application platform will be in our newsletter. It'll, there will be enough forecast to broadcast that to or not proper partners who have a state award pending that, hey, if this does come through as soon as you know, the soon as you know you got it, go here, put very briefly in the user data and the rest. So the timeframe of when you know those applications, then what then the process, how do you determine who gets grants? Just Well, we collect applications, they have to demonstrate, you know what they're going to do with the funds, with the impact of the project. Yes, pretty standard grants application, you know what cost sharing was or other money coming from Do they have all the money money they need to actually get the project started or are they going to be waiting for two to three years for them to get all the money they need before the project started. So that's the key point. And then what time, where are we going to come on there? When we make here a final determination, where are we in the calendar? So we were gathered all the applications. We are only expecting probably 15 to 20 because if we're only looking at state matched applications, people say again, sift comes from grants. We had unmatched cost-shank capital grants come on, come all other many things. And you have a idea you have had a small amount of grants applications that jam things up. If we're only looking at state matches, and we're only collecting state matches, and they've got to prove they have a state match, we're looking at 15 to 20 applications. So a team of three people can go through those fairly quickly. We've had IGR and your government relations, or on B, our reviewers, people, what we're looking at, the experience going through that state experience. So the timeframe, That's like, I would say like a month after the application closes, meaning you can have results. And so where are we in the calendar? Right now we're waiting for the state to come to resolution. In terms of the FY25 funds, because we're behind the FY25 funds, we just opened up the application late last week. So we've got about three year, three and a half weeks left before that closes. And so about a month after that closes, we're going to have results for FY 25. Okay, so what's going to happen if we're 26? So we're not in a same situation. We're opening it up as soon as the state comes to their final resolution. And then so we collect the applications, the people who know they got their awards. We go through those applications very quickly, it might even be, we might even come to results before you complete your budget and have recommendations to even put in your budget. Okay, I think that it's, we got 24 out the door, right? Yeah. Okay, so and we're already starting to look at 2026 and so we just have to, the process has to be very clear and I don't, this is a situation where I really don't understand the process has taken so long, but what are the bridge? I would assume that the 2026 will not have the same problem. Because again, we'll be limiting it to do not apply unless you have the state match. And that will limit some number of alerts. It creates this very small boundary, again, getting back to the concept of targeting. This is targeting the eligibility. And so we won't have eight plus applications like we did in FY24, which was really difficult to find enough reviewers to go through. So that just long-chammed everything. Same thing it did to community grants or these other smaller grants programs. So by targeting it, sitting clear around the list around that focusing our money, which is scarce, and limited on these state matches, we can have a much more manageable competition. Okay, thank you. And we have to hear from the county executive branch, from the county executive, that there is a planning place that this will be corrected and and going forward What we're going to do because right now I have absolutely no faith that the next time we do this we're going to get a different result. So I think we need to hear directly from him. Thank you. Can I ask you if it's anyone to begin? Thank you. First of all, the reference was made of water under the bridge. I mean, I will say it might be water under the bridge, but it's simply a bridge to nowhere. That's the problem. That has been so six years going on seven years. I don't think there's any confidence up here. I mean, there's any confidence among the nonprofit community more importantly that were heading to a conclusion and time soon forever. And what is... of the community more importantly, that we're heading to a conclusion every time certain, forever. And that is fundamentally the issue that we have. It was concerning that we're going to have a process that ends in three and a half weeks. Where are we on the calendar that brings us to being out of March, right? Just giving where we like we are. There'll be time that it takes to then review. If your timeline for moving forward is similar now, it's about a month. Is that accurate a month after the applications are received to review? Is that what we expect? To get results out the door. So after the review closes, we have options. So after the review closes, we analyze the data. We develop recommendations for the second floor. Because the CAO has to sign off and all grants or rewards. And so we develop recommendations if he supports them, it's okay with them. Then he signs it and then we move into the grant agreement stage. And so as soon as he signs it, we send notification letters out, we step the net steps of developing the grant agreements and getting that through. So one month after, we're in process, plus all the internal approvals of the awards. Okay, so one month after, just to be clear, that's one month after end of March that takes us to end of April. So let's just give a little bit of leeway here and say beginning of May, right, which is weeks before we finish the budget. It's after, really, we've done much of the committee work with the budget when the final decisions are being made. So it's really too late in the budget process unless we do something at the very, very end, which would be difficult. Ben, you're going to initiate a new process? No, I just want to understand. So if you want to move back to when you first timeline. Honourable for me at first, a cost-sharing grant applicant is going to receive notification that they either received or didn't receive funding and how much. For FY25, please. For FY25, of course, because we have to win the rear of the mirror here. OK. So then when that happens, at what point once they receive that information, will they then start applying for FY26 funds and will be a protocol to deal with how that works. At that point, you would know what the state has done for FY26, when you are at, you know, what the state has done for FY25, presumably, you know, because people are applying for funds from miles before, and this is kind of how this process works, because the things that we've dragged on for so long, how is that going to work? Just based on what you just shared with Council Member Balkham. That's why we would do this multi-stage application. We're starting to do it across all the grants programs. We have a very simple, easy first stage, which is not a lot of administrative work, and we just kind of collect basic information. So for that person, if they don't, assume as they hear that they didn't get in the world, let's assume the person didn't get in the world. If they wanted, they don't need to apply again. They would quickly, they had more rain, early FY26, pull the money. So they would not overlap. You would, before we would open up that, their opportunity for FY26, they would learn the results for FY25. Okay. All right. And it would also include additional folks who resumed that, you know know that may not have applied because they didn't receive state funding before they didn't Circle chances of dramatically changed in recent months Etc. They would be part of that application for as well Got got and Questions who was involved in mentioning and asking some of might be involved involved in analyzing the cost sharing grants We're using within county government who in the past opposite entered over relations are participated There's staff of backgrounds in the state bond bill process and looking at capital words there without on the analyst we see IP experience contributing. We'd like to get DGS involved and say there'll be the ones actually overseeing these awards and monitoring them as well. So for officer branch management, we will not be administering the awards. We facilitate the grants competition and awarding process, but then we hand off these awards to departments to oversee and DGS oversees all of these cautioning Kelar-Grants wards and it was half. When will the beside and who will decide who is on this review panel? We typically recruit sturdy application peer-width so all we recruiting from, we're sending out notices and directors of these departments asking them for staff to participate as reviewers. Again, I think based on the volume about the patience we expect to receive, a team of three people, we always want to have a non-number to go through these, it can go through that. It's usually about half an hour or so per application, so it's a manageable volume. Who's on the FY25 review team? It hasn't been set yet. When is it going to be set? applications are doing three and a half weeks. But we always train them usually midway between that. We work it down, then we do a training with them so that as soon as the application period closes, we do our own administrative reviewer, which is basically making sure the applications are completely the folks are actually legally eligible to actually have a state match within 24 to 48 hours. We pass those applications off to the reviewers for them to get started. Depending on the volume of applications, it's one, two, maybe three weeks. But for this volume, I would think about one to two weeks they could go through these. As part of the follow-up from this community session, I request that within two weeks that we have the specific people who will be involved in this review process, and I would presume and would like confirmation of whether or not that same panel would be on the next review process. I can't imagine why it wouldn't be, since it's going to happen within weeks is what you have just told us, and if they're good enough for the first review. I can't imagine why they wouldn't participate in the second, but if you could confirm, whether that would be the same review process, it doesn't seem to make a whole lot of sense to reinvent the wheel or to wait until the applications go out to decide on new people were to spend the time doing train. So let's get right to first time. Let's confirm with us if there's feedback from the council ahead of time. I think there should be enough time. We can have two weeks for the council to weigh in. If we think that there aren't the right perspectives among that three person panel, we should have an opportunity to do that. Just like one detail is because we have the arts category, and then the non-ARDS, just to spill it up and make it go, but the idea was the same three people will look at, just one category and close that out. That's a grand spest practice. So the making them faster, we get up two teams of three people. We'll share both of those teams of three people. Okay, so I understand on cost sharing grants, the last question that I would have, are we proactively reaching out to everybody who's received a cost sharing grant? It's such a small pool of people. Are we communicating with them to tell them what the process is? Now I understand that the world versus nonprofits in Montgomery County is massive. We utilize nonprofit partners like nonprofit Montgomery, which we really appreciate who are here today among others. Some of the large overarching organizations that are umbrella organizations of many nonprofits to allow you to reach out. Hopefully that will continue. You can't possibly reach everybody. Simon's not sure if you're talking about non-profit organizations that have received state funding over the last several years, two, three, four, five years, whatever window you, are we proactively reaching out to them? No, I haven't done that. We have usually relied on the passive. Usually they're kicking down our doors about getting money from us. But yeah, that is a fairly limited list. The tricky part about that list is that it's not always clear who wants money from us and who doesn't. Because sometimes I put them in the brown sheets that they are going to, which is their state application, that they are receiving money or they have money from a county government. Other times they say, well, we're good. We've got all the money that we need if we get the state award to. You know, if you get information and they don't need it, they will ignore it or they will say, thank you, this is really helpful and I'm really glad you're doing this, but we don't need to not going to go through the trouble of applying. It seems like a left and I would also strongly suggest that the same correspondence be copied or be sent to the members of the delegation so that they're aware since these are the folks who are actually doing the light work to get the state funds to begin with. And so if we can coordinate with them, that would be helpful. I think all members of the state delegation would be helpful. Obviously, Senator Zuckerberg is, Chuck Ligakl, a budget committee is very active in the news, but each delegation has its own effort. And so making sure that they're all included in that, I would urge you to do that. And if you could follow up with another follow up for this, it'll be able to tell us exactly what you're sharing when you're sharing it and with whom you're sharing it related to both FY 25 and FY 26. So I think there's still time with three and a half weeks left to reach out to everybody who's received state funding within a finite period. I'll yield to you of what are inappropriate timeline. I've heard that the last three years, this is the last five years, this is the last three years. I yield to you, but I want you to share with us how you decided on that. Which I really ought to have been the grants themselves. He's the discussions about the services that these organizations are providing. The overarching question is, at what point are they going to the base budget? There was a process before where there was a base budget question. And the department got to decide whether they liked something or didn't like something based on information that none of us have any idea how those decisions were made quite honestly. And I have been critical of that being part of the process. I think it was not the appropriate decision to make. I don't think department should be arbitrarily deciding if they like certain programs or don't, but that was what was decided. And then everything that wasn't picked was left as part of the legacy grant, essentially, you know, in the community grants. Is that a process for reviewing whether or not these legacy grants should move into the base budget? It would seem like a much more appropriate thing to do if the CIO has made the determination or the county executive and the CAO have made the determination that these legacy grants are so important, these services are so critical to the community that they are replacing or supplementing core government services shouldn't they be in base budget? The tricky thing with a lot of these programs is there's a lot of programs and services that important value the community no question, but they don't really fit with the they do things that are really more aligned with other agencies outside of Montgomery County Government. So there's a lot of academic preparation programs. You know, County Government doesn't necessarily do that. There's a lot of workforce development programs. The, you know, workforce organization Montgomery does that on behalf of the county. So there's a lot of things that if you look at the list and what the type of service being provided, there's really not a clear home where you would say, well, this is something that HHS does or this is something that recreation does. And so that's a tricky part about a lot of these awards is where we're going to put them. And so you can, and that was one thing in the weather they talked about clustering about having competitions just for workers having competitions just for these academic programs which again are not really services that we really have a natural home or where you would there's a logical place to put it in the base budget. So I would suggest that we have an analysis of all of the legacy grants and the buckets that you described. And either identify whether that bucket falls into a county government department or it doesn't and whether there is an outside partner that does that work. I think that analysis will help us make a decision for the actual plan that we've been talking about that we haven't seen to decide whether or not it would make sense to corrupt new grant programs within these categories and within these buckets. I also think there's some more review to decide if there are grants, legacy grants, that fall into departmental categories and I believe that they're likely are. They just were not put. We're not decided for reasons that not also that kind of that remain in black or black hope that somebody decided somewhere either they like something like it or they decided to include it and then decided to include it and then decision and discussion and all that should be moved into the base budget. And if they are moved into the base budget, how? Because if I'm talking about decision for legacy grants, we should make a decision of whether or not some of these legacy grants should just be included in the base budget. And that is a decision that we should make in this budget cycle. And we can provide us the analysis to make those decisions prior to the submission of the budget. And I think that is a topic of conversation that this committee can have. And then ultimately can send it over to the committee of jurisdiction to review the number of organizations and grants that fall within their category. Make a decision this be a base budget. It would be rather unusual for this budget year, but it would have an impact potentially for future budget years. But I think it's an important conversation and one that the council has never been for you to despite my objection as previously that it seems inappropriate for departments on their own to be able to make these judgment calls and the absence of Council and in the absence of any fair Review process panel, you know, etc. It was an example of how this process is well intended as it was has had some of the opposite intended effects where it's been less transparent, it's been less accountable, it's been arguably has had more in colloquial it influenced potentially on some of the decisions that have been made, where it loses lack of clarity that there have been decisions that weren't colloquial. So I I think that is going to be important. You know, earlier before on you sending your recommendations based on the panel's analysis, based on the tremendous work that you and they will do and have done to the CIO who ultimately has to decide whether or not he agrees. What happens if he doesn't agree? How does that process work? And has there been an example in the past where that has occurred? Where you have submitted from the panel the results of a process and the Chief Administrative Officer not agreed with the decision and what happened? Don't believe that's ever happened. Okay. You don't believe it's ever happened. It seems like you don't. The CIO was essentially overruled and overruled in the committee. I would imagine that if your boss overruling rule and over the committee. I would imagine that if your boss overruled you on one of the core functions of your job and a committee that you had assembled and the work that they had done that you would remember that. Minigranc was challenging, but there is no fun eventorship to the methodology. Okay, what there a slight change to the outcome? And I sure have found a shift to methodology when I bring over the slum, any change to the outcomes, were there any grants that have been changed based on the review? Sir, can we go on? Let's see. Grants have changed across all the different grant programs that we've done. No questions have been raised, but it's never been challenged who won grants, that the methodology shifted. It was all about the legacy decision was made based on the Chief Administrative Officer was not comfortable with the outcome of the methodology and so ultimately the decision for legacy grants was decided. That discussion was with the county executive, with the county executive. So the county executive ultimately decided to move forward with the legacy grant based on so it was don't change the methodology, change the process. Which we don't know. It's when there's all, it's the same process with the same data. Anyone can take the data say I had if you're on the same methodology, who come to the same results. And that's across all grant programs. So none of that has ever been changed. Okay. The amount of funds available because of legacy renewals and being able to fund that, that did change it. But the fundamental methodology in the scoring and the ranking that didn't change at all, not one data point. Okay. All right. I'll go back. Thank you. Councilmember Feet said I think having that analysis of the legacy grants will help us. Doing this budget process. I want to add and just say thank you to your office. I think your newsletter is excellent. I do receive it and I would say especially for folks getting the cost sharing, even just forwarding that information so that then they sign up for the newsletter from the Office of Grants and Management. I think would be helpful to those nonprofits as we're ever trying to increase the communication and information that's sharing on that. And in addition to the finding out who is going to be giving a reviewing for the car sharing, when you have solidified the timeline, if that could also be shared with the committee. As you know, in your office, there's always been incredibly responsive. We get a lot of inquiries. And so if there is information that we can just be passing on, like here is the timeline that you shared with us that just makes it easier, one for our nonprofits. So we're not sending them yet to another person to ask the information and hopefully that takes some of the burden off of your office as well. So anything that you can share with this committee that we can then share out to the full council would be very beneficial. Before we wrap today I think that we have a couple of things to move forward with and we'll continue this conversation. We'll continue it with our nonprofit partners to get us to a place where we have a strategic plan moving forward and figure out what we're doing and this ever-changing landscape. I do just want to spend a few moments, Mr. Murphy, if you had anything to update us on or want to come back. When we were here in November, we had talked about the cornerstone group had provided some additional information to you after the election. If there was anything else that you wanted to update us on, given the federal landscape and what your office is seeing. The office of the county attorney is performing the risk assessment regarding county grants and federal exposure. OGM is assisting them with their effort and I've been asked by the county attorney to refer all questions on their effort to him. All right. We will ask county attorney. I'm not seeing any other questions during this. As always, thank you very much for coming. Thank you to our partners at Nonprofit Montgomery for their assistance and Ms. Clemens Johnson. Thank you for your work on the packet and putting together this session. With that, this...